“You probably want to leave that there since I’m just getting started,” I told him.
“Okay,” Gideon whispered.
“Zayne found me in Rock Creek Park, and he didn’t really recognize me. It was like he did and then he couldn’t, and he went all Fight Club on me. I managed to get away—well, I sort of cut him and ran away, and while I was running, I heard this voice in my head telling me to go to the church.”
Across from me, Nicolai blinked slowly.
Knowing how out there all of this sounded, I still forged forward. “That’s where I saw the Throne, and a bunch of creepy stone angels, but they are kind of irrelevant even though the sight of them moving is going to haunt me for the rest of my life. The Throne told me what happened,” I said, and then I told them everything that the Throne had shared with me up until what I had to do. How Zayne had been given a choice. The burn upon reentry. And how, in his current state, he viewed Wardens and anything with grace in them as the enemy. I told them that the Throne had warned that Zayne...that he could become a risk to innocent people. When I finished, all I wanted to do was get back out there and find him.
Find him before he became what the Throne warned—before he did something he could never forgive himself for.
“He...he earned back his Glory, which... I’m not quite sure what that means, and he Fell so that he could—” My voice cracked, and every part of me tensed. I exhaled slowly through my nose as my eyes burned. “He Fell to come back and fight beside me—for me.”
“It’s the soul,” Gideon said hoarsely, drawing my attention. “Glory is basically the equivalent of a human soul, but for angels.”
Oh.
That made sense.
And it also made it so much worse, because did that mean Zayne had lost his soul?
“The Glory is why we—why Wardens—have a pure soul,” Gideon went on, and he looked like he needed to sit down. “Without it, he would be...”
I thought of what the Throne said, and I wanted to vomit. “He would be like a wraith?”
Gideon nodded, and if I hadn’t been sitting, I probably would’ve fallen. Wraiths were humans who’d been stripped of their souls after death. Some demons were capable of doing it. Sometimes it happened when a ghost lingered too long and refused to move on. There was no time limit on what too long was. It was different for every ghost. It was something that could just happen. Either way, wraiths were incredibly dangerous, vindictive and spiteful. They were hatred and bitterness personified. Pure malevolence.
“But that can’t be the only thing that happens to a Fallen,” I argued. “The Throne said that they hoped Zayne would be unscathed during the Fall. They hoped he would be useful in the fight against Gabriel even after he chose to Fall. The lack of Glory or soul or whatever must not be the only thing that guides a Fallen’s behavior.” All of them were staring at me. “I really hope you guys believe me.”
“What you’re saying has to be true. It’s the only way you’d know where we originated from.” Gideon twisted to Nicolai. “It’s the only way.”
Nicolai nodded slowly and then sat back, dragging a hand over his head and clasping the back of his neck. “He’s really back.”
“Yes. He really is.” My brows pinched. “Did you two know that Wardens were originally fallen angels?”
“I learned when I took over this role. The Alphas told me,” answered Nicolai, speaking of the class of angels who communicated with the Wardens.
“What?” Danika turned to Nicolai. “You knew?” She looked like she was a second away from hitting him. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“There are a lot of things that I haven’t told you.” The look on Danika’s face drove him to lean back. “That I can’t tell you.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “Really?”
“Why aren’t you mad at him?” Nicolai pointed at Gideon.
“Because he’s not sleeping in the same bed as me,” she shot back.
Yikes-a-doodle.
Time to change the subject to a less awkward conversation.
“How did you know?” I asked Gideon. “I’m assuming this is something that clan leaders sort of take to their graves.”
“It is, but I...I have access to a lot of old books—letters and journals from, well, a very long time ago. I stumbled across the journals of one of the second-or third-generation Wardens. That’s where I read about it, and I had gone to Abbot about it,” he explained, referencing Zayne’s father. “He confirmed it.”
“So, Zayne is...” Danika pressed her hand to her mouth, and that had to be the exact moment she truly realized that Zayne was alive. “How does he...how does he look?”
“Like Zayne—except for the wings. They’re white and streaked with grace. His eyes are also a deep, deep blue. Like, the color is unreal.” I looked down at my dirtied hands. “He looked good. Perfect actually.” I swallowed hard. “He’s very powerful—more so than even me.”
“Because he’s a fallen angel who still has his grace,” Dez said, and his auburn curls looked like he been shoving his fingers through them the whole time we talked. “He’s basically an angel.”
“Not just any angel.” Gideon was staring at me. “From what I could gather, most of those who Fell were from the second sphere. They were Powers—the first Order of Angels God created. They were like elite warriors, protecting the human and heavenly realms. That’s what we descended from. He’s a Power, and that’s why the grace was visible in his wings. He has as much juice in him as an archangel.”
Great.
Why couldn’t they have originated from, I don’t know, guardian angels, or like the ones who just sang about God or something? But no, it had to be elite warriors.
“A Fallen Power,” Nicolai whispered, now dragging his hand down his face. “Jesus. He would be virtually unstoppable. The clan is already on high alert with the whole Harbinger-slash-Gabriel mess, but we need to make sure they’re aware of Zayne and that he will be...unpredictable at the moment.”
“I’ll make sure everyone is aware,” Gideon said.
It destroyed me to think of the Wardens having to be warned to stay away from Zayne. That was why I came here, but... “He’s not completely bad yet. There was a part of him that did recognize me. That’s not wishful thinking, because he could’ve done some serious damage to me. He could’ve killed me, but he didn’t. He’s still in there, and the Throne told me what I needed to do to bring him back before it becomes too late. I just...”